On a Lighter Note
The sky looked pretty this evening.
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Morning Blues
I get excited when I hear thunder booming within an hour or 2 of sunrise. Regardless of when I went to bed I’ll get up and check the radar for the potential of sunrise thunderstorm photos. If I see spotty red blobs on the radar I jump out of bed. This morning I grabbed a coffee and walked out to the end of the Avalon Pier to photograph the storm over the ocean to the south. It wasn’t nearly as intense of a storm as the one that hit a few hours earlier, but still made for some cool ominous photos. There was a nice tailer bluefish bite at the end of the pier with a few big spanish mackeral mixed in. Blues were flopping around everywhere. Was a good start to my day.
Marsh’s Light
A few images I took one evening earlier this summer of Marsh’s Lighthouse in Manteo.
Thank You Maria
The last few weeks have been hectic to say the least. Been chasing hurricane swells up and down the coast in between weddings. Scored it best at home as usual. Beautiful waves and weather. Here’s a few moments from the most recent barrelfest courtesy of Hurricane Maria.
Irene Aftermath
After I photographed the sound coming up at a scary rate for about 15 minutes, I decided to drive down to South Nags Head to photograph the surf as it cleaned up from the offshore wind. The sky was moody and the wind straight offshore. My wife was with me.The road was dry when I got down there and the waves were getting better and better. Not really surfable but really fun to watch and photograph. Wife snapped a photo of me shooting for perspective.
In hindsight, driving down to Nags Head was probably the dumbest thing I could’ve done. After shooting for about 30 minutes, I hopped back in the truck to head home. When I pulled out onto the road I couldn’t believe my eyes..
There was now a river rushing across the street as far as I could see that was dry 30 minutes prior. I had messages on my phone from friends that live near my house to get home as soon as possible because the sound was coming fast and approaching my house. ”I hope you’ve gotten everything upstairs cause its coming fast and its not looking good!! It’s like a tsunami!” My wife and I really started freaking out because we were 15 miles away from my house with a rushing river between us and our home and dog. I didn’t know how deep it was but I had only one choice…to charge through it. Service engine soon light came on, water coming up on the hood, truck stalling. Panicking. Am I going to make it? What if I don’t? No turning back. By the grace of god we made it (my truck is not running so well now) and raced home. Was one of the scariest moments of my life and I’m so thankful we didn’t get stranded in south nags head. Can’t believe some of the things I do to take surf photos! The next morning I got up before sunrise to see how bad Irene devastated the area. It was a beautiful sunrise with really fun looking waves. Hard to believe a hurricane nearly leveled parts of the Outer Banks the day before.
After shooting for a few minutes at Avalon I drove to Bay Drive to photograph the destruction. Bay drive is about 3 streets away from my house. Once again I couldn’t believe my eyes. So many peoples lives turned upside down. Boats and debris everywhere. Confused animals. Heartbroken people. Houses ruined. War zone.
I have friends that live in Colington and heard the flooding was really bad there as well so I headed there. The sound water had receded but the low lying areas still had standing water.
Most of my friends were surfing at this point in the day, so I left Colington to head back down to South Nags where I thought I was going to get stranded the evening before. There were boats and jetskis everywhere near whalebone junction from Nags Head Waterways. When I got into south nags the road was almost dry again. Eerie considering how it looked 12 hours prior.
The waves had dropped quite a bit but were still fun. Surfed for a couple hours. When I got out I saw something in the surf. Walkd over and it was a very confused snapping turtle that had most likely been washed into the surf from the sound. I watched him for a few minutes try and figure out what the heck was going on. He eventually started walking back up to the sound. It was bizarre seeing a big snapper walking on the beach.
That evening I flew in a helicopter down to Hatteras Island and photographed the new inlets and devastation down there. Will post those photos soon..check back.
Irene: Landfall Pt 1
I have to admit, I thought everyone including the weather channel was overhyping this storm. I knew the track wasn’t good but I didn’t realize how destructive Irene was going to be. I didn’t turn the TV on once because they were being so dramatic (look!! I’m beyond perpendicular!!). How ridiculous. I got my updates from the radio and the internet. It was pretty windy, but my house is protected from most wind directions by small trees and my windows were boarded up. I’m also out of the flood zone so wasn’t concerned with flooding. I did move everything upstairs just in case. As the eye of the storm moved closer the wind blew harder and it poured. Still had power and water and my wife dog and I were hanging out inside watching north shore pretending like nothing was happening. In between storm bands I drove up the street to Bay Drive to see how the sound was looking.There was no sound…the storm had blown all the water west up into the mainland. During that time they were getting pounded with tornados and flooding. It was devastating them while we were out walking around in the mud picking up crab pots.
I then drove over to Colington because I wanted to photograph some of the boats sitting in the mud while the sound was blown out. Sure enough, sailboats were anchored up in the mud with no water in sight. I walked around in the mud and pouring rain to shoot photos. I almost got stuck a few times..it was like quicksand.
After Colington I stopped by the Avalon Pier to see how the ocean was looking and how the pier was holding up. The 50-60 mile per hour winds whipping the sand in my face while I shot photos of the surf was not fun. I dont think my truck and cameras enjoyed it either. I saw a news team trying to report from there and it was pretty funny. About as funny as me trying to take photos in a hurricane.
On the way back I stopped by boat ramp on bay drive. The once floating dock was sitting in the mud with people standing all around it. Quite a few people were there walking around talking about the storm and looking at the empty sound. I didn’t feel quite as bad about driving around. People had their cocktails with them as they played in the pouring rain. It was almost like a regular summer afternoon rain cloud moving through.
Irene was still pretty minor in my mind at that point. I headed back home and edited wedding photos for about an hour and kept up with the storm updates on the radio. After hearing the eye of the storm was north of us, I headed back over to the same boat ramp on the sound to a completely different picture. Check back soon for more.
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